📍 Java, Indonesia
After spending a night in Jakarta for the preview opening of Museum MACAN (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara), we flew out to Yogyakarta, located in central Java, and rode an elephant to see Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It was built during the 8th century, when the Indonesian-Malay archipelago was mostly Hindu and Buddhist, prior to the spread of Islam in the 12th century.
Although Borobudur is considered the main attraction in Yogyakarta, there are other impressive temples that were built around the same time. Like Borobudur, they were also made from volcanic stone, due to the numerous volcanoes that abound in that region. Prambanan temple, for instance, was built in the 9th century as the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty’s reply to the preceding Buddhist Sailendra dynasty’s building of Borobudur. Despite the different religions for which these temples were built, however, their shared architectural and sculptural styles make them aesthetically more similar than different. In both structures the influence of Indian Gupta and post-Gupta art is palpable but adapted to suit distinctly Indonesian scenes, dress, mythical creatures, and postures. The figures are particularly beautiful and aptly demonstrate this fusion, as they are often attired in Javanese headdresses and sarongs while gracefully floating, sinuous, and serene, befitting the Gupta style.
The first four terraces of Borobudur are decorated with 2,670 bas-reliefs that are considered to be among the most elegant sculptural works from the ancient Buddhist world. 1,460 of these are narrative (story-telling), as is the case with the famous panels that depict the Ramayana (life of Buddha), and 1,212 more are decorative, illustrating scenes of daily court and village life, animals, and divine beings in ancient Java. In terms of the monument itself, Borobudur’s structure mimics a mandala (a Buddhist symbol of the universe) in that its circular platforms encompass a square, which represents the sky encompassing the earth. 504 statues of Buddha surround the whole site, including inside each of Borobudur’s 72 stupas (Buddhist commemorative mounds).
The Brooklyn Museum’s two Javanese stone reliefs, Avalokitesvara and Head of a Deity, that date to around the same era and from the same region exhibit the same traits that characterize the sculptural figures at Borobudur. Their full, subtly expressive faces and proportional bodies speak of the Gupta style, while their headdresses are distinctively Javanese.
After seeing Borobudur in all its majestic wonder, we flew from the land of volcanoes to the land of the rising sun for its most cherished season!
Posted by Amanda Imai
